I would like to share a court sentence and the possible implications on future sentences that were concluded few weeks ago here in Malta.

A Project Supervisor Construction Stage was taken to court and found guilty for his accuses because of the following reasons:

The supervisor communicated with a client's representative and with not with the client directly
The supervisor communicated mostly by e-mail and not verbally
The supervisor was not deployed on site full time

This has raised concerns to the rest of us because the sentence now implies that irrelevant of the size of the project, a full time project supervisor should always be deployed on site and it seams that even if contractors or the client (as it is almost always the case) do not want to improve the situation it is the supervisor that will take the blame.

I would like to hear the views of some of you fellow IOSH members who witnessed or had experience in the past about similar prosecutions.

(Please note that as per the Maltese regulations, it is the duty of the Client to designate the project supervisors)

Regards
Nick